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DecoDreams
Your Guide to Creating Beautiful Spaces, FAST!
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May 04, 2004
Issue #019
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THE MISSION...DecoDreams is the home-decorating-made-
easy.com e-zine that delivers interior decorating tips,
ideas, and solutions to enhance all rooms of your home.
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***********************ACKNOWLEDGEMENT********************

Diversity of creative ideas has always been the hallmark of home decorating. That's why I've asked designer, artist, educator and writer, Marney Makridakis, to share her own unique brand of decorating advice in our "Ask the Decorator" column. I think you'll enjoy her wit and original insights.

Recently, a lot of questions have been submitted to home-decorating-made-easy.com that concern tricks and tips for making bold color choices. Since getting past "color fear" is one of the biggest challenges for new home decorators, I’m happy to be getting these questions about vibrant, unique color schemes.

So congratulate yourself for moving beyond those white walls!

To answer many of these questions, I thought I’d offer a few tips for working with bold, bright, or unusual color schemes in your home:

1. Use black with conscious care

Black is a dramatic color that can be used very effectively in many situations. With primary colors, it can be wonderfully crisp and contemporary.

With deep, intense colors such as burgundy, forest green, and navy blue, it can be rich and dramatic. But there are a few colors that do not mix well with black, and it’s a good idea to know them, right off the bat.

First of all, it’s virtually impossible to make orange and black look like anything but Halloween, so unless you are decorating a teenagers’ room, it’s best to avoid this pairing. The same goes for variations of orange, such as rust or pale peach.

The other colors to avoid pairing with black are pale pastels, such as pale blue and pale green. Even if used in small doses, black will overpower these colors completely and you’ll be left with a room that feels empty of any color scheme, altogether! Pale pink, however, can work with black for a fun, vintage, art-deco look.

Finally, since it is hard to avoid a "honey bee" association when you pair yellow and black, the only way those two colors tend to work well is if they are used to create a cozy, country, cottage-like environment. This combination is very hard to pull off in formal or romantic rooms.

2. Use a tried-and-true formula for mixing brights and pastels

If you want to combine bright primary colors with pale pastels, your best bet will be to select pastel versions of secondary colors, rather than other primary colors. Don’t worry, I’ll break this down to make it easier:

Red, blue, and yellow are primary colors. When mixed together, those colors make the secondary colors: orange, green, and violet.

Bright red looks much more harmonious with pale orange, green or violet, rather than with pale blue or pale yellow.

The pale secondary colors are a better balance for the intensity of the primary color.

Take a walk through a fabric store, or look at a clothing catalog, to see color schemes in action. You’ll notice that combinations of a bright primary color with a pale secondary color are very common.

It’s a "formula" that works consistently. While this is not a "hard and fast" rule, it is something to keep in mind if you’re nervous about working with new colors.

3. Keep accessories to a minimum

If you want to express yourself with a bold and bright color scheme, it’s best to choose your accessories wisely so that the room is not too overpowering for its visitors. Even with very bright colors, like those shown in this casual living room, the eye needs a place to rest.

In this example, a variety of bright colors are used as accents, but they are placed strategically in small
groupings, such as the pile of funky pillows on the sofa, and the trio of colored goblets on the mantel. Other accents, such as floor lamps and wall sconces, are neutral in color.

Remember, too much color in too many places can weigh down a room. The choices explained here allow this room to maintain its light, fun mood.

4. Remember your focal point

This photo also is a good example of the importance of having a clear focal point in a room with a bold color
scheme. Here, the vivid walls set the stage for the dramatic focal point of the whimsically bright fireplace.

Upon entering the room, there is no question that the eye will go to the fireplace, first.

When visitors enter a brightly-colored room, they should be impressed by the impact of the color scheme, not overwhelmed by it. Clarifying a color scheme ensures that their vision will be directed when they enter the room.

Whether conscious or not, they will most likely take in the fireplace, and then scanning the rest of the room to enjoy its energetic vitality.

5. Distribute "weight" among colors

This tip holds true with any color scheme, but it is especially important when using vivid colors. Let’s say that your color scheme consists of a vibrant eggplant purple, a deep scarlet red, and kiwi green.

If you used all three of these highly-saturated colors in equal amounts, the scheme could come across as
overwhelming or shocking. So just make a few choices to ensure that the colors are distributed in a way that promotes balance.

One color should be used the most heavily in the room - this is called your focal color. You can think of this one color as the pulse of the room. It is the visual pull that brings us into a room and helps our eyes move around it freely.

Let’s say that in our example, the eggplant is the focal color. We use it for our walls color and as the main color in the patterned fabric in the upholstery and window treatments.

Once the focal color is determined, it is easy to add the rest of the colors in your scheme to the mix. Select different "weights" for the other colors, making some colors more prominent, and others used sparingly in small amounts.

Our eggplant-colored room could have a scarlet red chair, and scarlet could also be included in the patterned fabric used for the window treatments, and in a throw blanket that is placed on the eggplant sofa.

Finally, we add the kiwi into the picture in small amounts, as an accent color. Perhaps we add a kiwi throw pillow, some kiwi-colored curtain tiebacks, and a lampshade with kiwi beads and fringe. The result is a dynamic room that sings of vivid colors, while remaining balanced and comfortable.

QUESTION: I’m interested in creating a leather-like finish on my wall, but I’ve read the instructions for various products and it seems apparent that this is a two person job (and I’m the only who will be doing it.) Is there a maroon faux finish that one person can do that might look like the leather look I’m going for?

ANSWER: There are lots of faux finishes that a single person can do, but it would be tricky to get the leather look that you are going for without a second person to help out with the extra glazing and layering steps required for that particular looks. There’s an alternative, though, and it might surprise you...you can use your computer to create a "faux" faux finish. :-)

If you’re computer savvy, you can use your favorite image software to create the look you’re going for, and then print it out on a high-quality photo quality paper with a matte finish.

Then use decoupage medium (such as Mod Podge or Royal Coat) to apply the papers to your wall. No painting is necessary!

If you’re intrigued by the technique but a little nervous about how successful you might be, try Favour Media’s new product, the Just Faux Fun kit (available at home improvement stores), to guide you through the process. The kit includes a CD-ROM with over 100 printable finish designs that you can print from your home computer, and alter as you like.

The kit also includes all the necessary supplies and instructions for applying the printouts to your walls and other surfaces effectively, so that no seams or ridges show, and it looks like you painted it yourself.

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